UAE annual leave calculator
What has accrued from the joining date, what is left after leave taken, and what the balance is worth — for the UAE mainland, DIFC or ADGM, each under its own rules rather than one set applied to all three.
Enter the joining date and a wage and the balance appears here — what has accrued, what is left, what it is worth, and whether the days are counted as calendar or working days in that jurisdiction.
Questions this raises
- How much annual leave accrues in the UAE?
- Thirty calendar days a year once an employee has completed a year of service, and two days per month for service between six and twelve months. Below six months there is no statutory entitlement. Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021, Article 29.
- Is UAE annual leave counted in calendar days or working days?
- Calendar days on the mainland, so weekends and public holidays inside a period of leave are part of it. DIFC and ADGM are different: both count 20 working days. A system configured for the wrong unit over-credits every employee, every year.
- What is leave encashment paid at?
- Annual leave is paid at the full wage under Article 29 — the whole package, not the basic component. That is the opposite of gratuity, which is basic only.
- Can leave be carried forward?
- The law allows leave to be carried into the following year or paid in cash by agreement; it is not automatic in either direction. The ceiling and the mechanism are set by your own policy, which is why this calculator takes the opening balance from you rather than assuming one.
The balance is only as good as the ledger
This works the accrual out from the dates. What it cannot do is tell you whether the opening balance you typed is right — and that is where encashment disputes actually start, because almost every company has retyped balances into a new spreadsheet at some point. Why a leave balance goes wrong covers it, and Core HR keeps a ledger back to the joining date so the number is calculated rather than asserted.